Ecuadorian Siona (also known as Baicoca) is a spoken language by the Siona people of Ecuador, and can be considered a dialect or variety of a larger Baicoca-Siecoca, or Siona-Secoya, language cluster. Ecuadorian Siona is part of the Western Tukanoan language family. Ecuadorian Siona is closely related to Secoya and Colombian Siona (see Siona language); the three represent a language cluster spoken near the borders of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The variety spoken in Ecuador differs from the one spoken in Colombia with regard to some lexical, morphological, and phonological characteristics. Some properties of Ecuadorian Siona are actually closer to Secoya. The three varieties show a high level of mutual intelligibility. Bruil views them as three different varieties of the same Siona-Secoya dialect continuum, with Ecuadorian Siona in the middle. The Ecuadorian variety is spoken in the Eastern jungle area of Ecuador in the Sucumbíos province. Speakers of Ecuadorian Siona mostly reside in six villages: Puerto Bolívar and Tarabëaya are located on the Cuyabeno river, and Sototsiaya, Orahuëaya, Aboquëhuira and Bi'aña on the Aguarico River. Ecuadorian Siona is also spoken outside of Ecuador, however, it is minimal. As of 2020, there were 25 native speakers in Buenavista, Nuevo Amanecer, and Mocoa in Colombia. History Today, Ecuadorian Siona is spoken by less than 250 people and is considered an endangered language. Not only has the influence and spread of the dominant Spanish culture and language brought detrimental consequences for the indigenous ways of living and language but also the fact that families are no longer passing down the language to the younger generation. There are differences amongst the different villages and the presence of Ecuadorian Sinoa. Children in the Puerto Bolívar village are taught Spanish at home and very few are taught the Sinoa language. The children of the Sotosiaya village grow up with Sinoa as their first language until they go to school where they are instructed in Spanish. However, the village that is in more danger of losing this language is the Tarabëaya village. In this village, the only speakers of Siona are those who are over the age of 50. Siona people descended from the so-called Encabellados (the Spaniards came up with the name describing their habit of taking good care of their long hair). The records of contact go back as early as 1599 when the Jesuit missionary first visited the Encabellados. Since then and well into